Tag Archives: stories

Is it thought provoking? Is she pensive, are you pensive? Why is she out there? Was there something that drew her outside? Could she fall off the roof? Does she do that often?

What does she see? What does her world look like? Would you want to be a part of that world? What is it like inside? Does she like her family? Did she want to get away for a bit?

Could you start writing a story based on a single moment. A single girl in the window, or a single look out your own window?

When I was in high school I used to write often, and many times I would look out my window and watch people walking by and write about what I saw, making up stories for each person, why they were there, where they were going, what they were saying. It would take my mind away for even just a few hours and draw me into a different world, just by looking outside of my window.

This was when I lived in on the beach, with crowds in the summer time, walkers all year round.

I have also lived in the city, downtown.

When I lived in the city, I couldn’t write what I saw in real life. The things you see living in a city write themselves, because there is such a variety of people, there are wind tunnels, and so much you don’t see living in the suburbs. I looked out my window during a storm once to see a poor woman holding onto the side of a bush frantically while the wind harshly blew her umbrella, but she wouldn’t let go. Even though the umbrella was inside out and she was getting pulled as she grasped the bush as tight as she could, she would not let go of that umbrella. I kept screaming at the window, “Let go of that umbrella Woman before you blow away!”. This sounds crazy, but it really happened. I couldn’t write that to sound like reality as hard as I tried. During the same storm I saw two boys walking down the same stairwell and one of the boy’s shirts flew off of his back! The shirt came up and over his head and just before it came off of his neck, he quickly reached out with both hands, grabbed the edges of the shirt and pulled it back onto his body. Would you believe that would happen in real life if you had read it in a book? Probably not. Maybe if there was a hurricane or a tornado or something of the sort. But this is what I saw out my window living next to a wind tunnel in the city.

I’ve lived in apartment complexes, as well.

People watch out their window in apartment complexes and tell you they’ve laughed at you from time to time watching you out the window as your dog pulls you to his spot to go the bathroom and you’re dragging along behind him or when he pulls you into the snow onto your knees because you have the flu and you’re not ready for 65 lbs to pull you across the lawn just yet. Clearly you can tell I speak from personal experience on that issue.

It’s amazing the stories you can tell just from looking out your window. The places you can go with your imagination. The people who make you laugh, and the ones that laugh at you. What about the sounds that draw you to your window at night?

Every so often I hear drag races in the parking lot next door at the wee hours of the morning. I’m always tempted to get up and look, but I’m usually too tired.

There have been times when I wake up to windows smashed or gas tanks open and think did anyone wake up? What if I had heard that and looked out the window to see who had done it, could we have caught them? No one heard the drill going through the truck’s gas tank the night before to syphon out the gas? Not one person looked out their window? (You can tell I don’t live in the best area….but surprisingly it’s not the worst either, we just seem to have terrible luck lately in this development…I’m going to move soon regardless.)

Look at all of that. All because of a girl in the window, a trigger went off in my head. So many stories, so many memories, laughs, tears, happiness, sadness, fear. All from a piece of glass between me and them. Me and the world. Me and my imagination.